living outside Australia, I don't see the TV news there, so thank you for this perspective.
I do, however, have Australian colleagues in academia and the stories they tell of research censorship there are horrific. It applies equally to biologists, historians, literature scholars, and others.
you can be a credentialed biologist in Australia and want to challenge climate change theory… your project won't be approved.
you can be a historian who wants to challenge socialist narratives on how gays or Muslims or women were treated in the past… not allowed. I've had colleagues threatened with police investigations over these things, not "just" losing their jobs or being denied promotion at their university.
having said this, all the obstacles faced by honest, patriotic Australian academics are also faced by American academics, though usually in a somewhat watered-down form compared to the Land of Oz.